Balkan-Style

What the f*** is "balkan style"???

It started with the idea of a hungarian "goulash session" with Kriszti, although it turned out to be a "Pörkölt". We started around 1 p.m. with a good "Vilmos Körte Palinka" to warm up and to burn the fat that would be consumed afterwards....

(typical hungarian breakfast -ya, right!!!)

Afterall we got serious and focused on cooking the best Goulash - sorry - "Pörkölt" ever.

Sliced the onions into small cubes that made us sheding some tears and fry them in pork lard addig the pressed garlic gloves
When they were nice gold brown the cubed beef was mixed and fried it until the color of the beef turned to be grey- brownish.
We covered the mixture with red mild-sweet hungarian pepper powder and increased the intesity of this amazing spice blend with freshly milled black pepper, caraway seeds, completed it with marjoram, laurels, filled it up with water.
Then we tranferred it to our bonfire, using our tripod (yeah, after 3 years we used it for the first time!!). Smelling the seducing aroma in the air The "Jedis" (Mario, Heidi, Ben, Lauri), Chrstian and Barbara joined us.
We tasted and tested the Pörkolt, but after 3 hours it was still quite chewy while Kriszti stated: "Hey guys, this is Balkan Style! ;-)". This became the slogan for the rest of the afternoon ;-))
Half an hour before the stew would have been finished we added a shot of red wine and the hot pepper / chilies.
After 4 hours of simmering, fighting the smoke, eating Apfelstrudel (recipe coming soon), cheesecake (from Heidi, recipe coming soon) and chestnut from our tree the Pörkolt was finally ready!
Accompanied by polenta (from Christian) and tarhonya we enjoyed the delicious meal.